I myself is a graduate of the premier state university and I dearly miss my college a lot. The days when brewing ideas clash with personal perspectives. Liberty was our battlecry and being “iskolars ng bayan” we did fight for our right to be educated fair and square. Yeah, I am a UP alumnus, but not in this campus, but down south.

I had a chance to take my summer courses in UP Diliman in 2004. Called by some of our professors as “Imperial Diliman,” this is the flagship campus of the University of the Philippines, the country’s premiere state university, after they’ve transfered majority of their schools from the old Manila campus (still houses College of Medicine, College of Nursing and others) sometime after World War II.

The first thing you’ll ever encounter in every UP campus is the symbol of “the iskolars ng bayan”, the Oblation. Well, we were taught once that it is a symbol of the “isko’s” selfless service and sacrifice towards humanity and his countrymen. Popularly they’ve said that Oblé as we call it, was the father of the late movie actor Fernando Poe Jr., but some it was believed to be that of a certain Fernando (?) Caido…more or less still it was an obra maestra of Guillermo Tolentino. The original statue is now housed at the Main Library (at the 4th floor ba yun, its in the Institute of Library Sciences).

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